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Posts Tagged ‘Dramatic’

6 Tips for Capturing Dramatic Skies in your Landscape Photography

06 Dec

The post 6 Tips for Capturing Dramatic Skies in your Landscape Photography appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Hillary Grigonis.

Don’t let the “land” in landscape photography fool you; a great landscape photo relies just as much on the sky as the land. Boring gray skies make for boring landscape photos, after all!

That said, capturing a dramatic sky in-camera is trickier than it seems. When the sky is lighter than the land, your camera will typically overexpose it, turning a brilliant blue into a vague and unexciting gray or white.

But with a little fine-tuning, it is possible to capture a sky that is the cherry on top of a great scene! Here are six tips for capturing more dramatic skies in your landscape photography.

dramatic sky cityscape

1. Time it right

Landscape photography may not require the split-second timing that’s necessary for capturing a toddler’s smile or a wide receiver’s catch, but timing is still a big part of the picture. The sky that’s gray one day could be bright blue the next. So when planning out a landscape photo, consider how the timing will impact the sky.

Watch for weather patterns that add interest to a shot, like a storm brewing just above the horizon. Weather plays a big role in the overall mood of the image – so if you’re hoping to capture a dark and gloomy shot, head out when the sky is stormy.

On the other hand, if you’re hoping to capture a more relaxed or happy photo, look for blue skies dotted with clouds.

blue sky with fluffy clouds

The time of day matters, too. While the middle of the day will produce the most shadows on the land, it’s when the sky tends to be the clearest blue. And just after sunset and just before sunrise is often a good time to capture wispy clouds and a warmer tint of light.

Of course, sunrise and sunset is great for dramatic skies, as well.

2. Try the wrong white balance

Photography rules are sometimes meant to be broken, including rules about always using the correct white balance.

You see, the wrong white balance setting can create a more dramatic sky. This is especially true when shooting toward the beginning or end of the day – using a different white balance preset will adjust the color in the sky.

Auto, Cloudy, and Shade white balance presets will get you an orangish sunset with a light blue sky (with slight variations in warmth depending on the setting you choose). A florescent setting, on the other hand, will typically turn an orange sunset purple with a brilliant blue sky. Tungsten offers a similar effect, but with even deeper colors.

white balance examples

Using Kelvin temperatures to adjust your white balance results in even greater control over the colors in the sky. At around 5500K, you’ll usually capture a sunny sky with an accurate white balance – that is, where things that are white are still white in the picture, and where things that are gray are still gray in the picture.

A higher temperature – 6500K, for example – will give the land an orange glow but also enhance the colors in a sunset. A cooler temperature, on the other hand (e.g., 3000K), will play up the blues and purples. By using the Kelvin scale, you have more options for picking a white balance setting that best captures the colors in your photos.

Warm white balance for a warm sky
Here, the white balance was altered in post-processing to warm up the sky.

While it’s always best to get the shot right in-camera, shooting in RAW offers you even more flexibility when it comes to adjusting the colors in the sky (and the rest of the image, for that matter).

If you overdid things by making the shot too warm or too cool, you can easily adjust a RAW photo in post-processing, so that you use the color temperature that best fits the image. If you have a landscape photo that you already shot in RAW, open it and try different white balance presets, or the temperature slider, to see first-hand how shooting with a different white balance would have impacted the shot.

3. Compose for the sky

When the sky is more dramatic than the land, why not use that to determine your composition?

Pay attention to where you place the horizon when you are composing your shot. Use the rule of thirds to imagine the image is divided into threes, then place the horizon on one of those horizontal lines. If you are shooting a photo with an average-looking sky, try placing the horizon on the upper third of the image, so more of the land is included in the photo, like this:

horizon high up with a boring sky
As the sky here isn’t very dramatic, the higher placement of the horizon improves the composition.

But if the sky is really dramatic, take advantage of that and include more of it in the frame – by placing the horizon on the lower third:

horizon low in the frame with a dramatic sky
The sky here is dramatic, so the image was composed to show less ground and more sky.

4. Use a filter

There are two filters every landscape photographer should have in their camera bag in order to capture more dramatic skies.

The first is a graduated neutral density filter. Now, a regular neutral density filter is like putting sunglasses over your lens – it limits the light coming in for bright scenes or long exposures. But a graduated neutral density filter places that darkening effect only on a portion of the image. And by positioning the dark portion of the filter over a bright sky, you can properly expose the entire scene.

Without a graduated neutral density filter, the sky will often be overexposed and bland, or the land will be underexposed and dark. With the filter, you can achieve an exposure that works for both portions of the scene. The only downside is that graduated neutral density filters don’t work as well with an uneven horizon, like when shooting a cityscape. Graduated neutral density filters come in both circular and square formats, but the square is often preferred because you can place the horizon anywhere in the frame.

The second filter landscape photographers should use to capture more dramatic skies is a polarizing filter. Polarizing filters work by adjusting the reflected light coming through your camera lens. Since the sky is blue because of this reflected light, turning the front of the polarizing filter will adjust the intensity of the blues in the sky. Since polarizing filters only affect reflected light, they can still be used when mountains or buildings make the horizon uneven. Polarizing filters are also great for enhancing or removing reflections on water or other shiny surfaces.

polarizing filter example

5. Experiment with motion blur and long exposures

Long exposures aren’t just for photographing waterfalls. If you use a long enough shutter speed, the clouds will blur, too, creating a sky of wispy streaks and a slight feeling of motion.

To capture motion blur in the clouds, you’ll need to use a long shutter speed. The best settings will depend a bit on the weather and how much motion blur you’d like, but you can try starting with a two-minute exposure and adjust up or down from there.

motion in the sky

If you are shooting during the day, you may not be able to balance out a two-minute exposure with a narrow-enough aperture or a low-enough ISO; instead, you’ll end up with a photo that’s way too bright.

So how do photographers capture motion blur in the clouds when the photo obviously wasn’t taken at dusk or dawn?

They use a neutral density filter – which helps block out some of the light so that you can set a long exposure during the day.

(Note that a neutral density filter is the same thing as a graduated neutral density filter, but the entire filter is dark instead of just half of the filter).

motion in the water and sky due to a long exposure blur

6. Use the Adobe Camera RAW Graduated Filter tool

While it’s always best to get the shot right in-camera, there are a few editing tools that can improve the sky in your landscape photos. One of those tools is the Graduated Filter inside Adobe Camera RAW (this works the same in Photoshop and Lightroom).

With the Graduated Filter, you can drag an effect over the sky in your photo. Like an actual graduated filter, the effect will only cover the top portion of the image and gradually fade away, making it possible to create natural-looking edits.

The Graduated Filter tool can be used to adjust the exposure, creating an effect much like an actual graduated neutral density filter. But the tool can also adjust contrast, saturation, clarity, sharpness, and color. That opens up a lot of possibilities for applying edits just to the sky for more drama – creating effects that sometimes can’t be done in-camera.

rainbow in the sky
This is the original photo.
rainbow in the sky but with a Graduated Filter to enhance the drama
This is the same photo, but with a Graduated Filter used on the sky to increase the drama.

Capturing dramatic skies in your landscape photos: conclusion

The sky can make or break a landscape photo. From timing and composition to filters and post-processing, when you consider the sky as you shoot, you’ll end up with more dramatic, frame-worthy shots.

Do you have any other tips for creating dramatic skies in your landscape photography? Share them in the comments!

The post 6 Tips for Capturing Dramatic Skies in your Landscape Photography appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Hillary Grigonis.


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Fujifilm releases major 4.00 firmware update for X-T3, bringing dramatic autofocus improvements

29 Oct

As it said it would at the beginning of October, Fujifilm has released a firmware update for its XT3 camera that it claims will dramatically improve autofocus performance.

Firmware version 4.00 for the XT-3 claims to triple the autofocus speed from 0.06 seconds down to 0.02 seconds, bringing it in line with the autofocus speed of the newer X-T4. The algorithm that predicts the location of subjects has also been improved, according tot he changelog.

Overall autofocus tracking performance has been doubled (compared to firmware version 3.30), with faster and more accurate subject acquisition. Both Eye AF and Face Tracking have also been given a performance boost with this firmware, doubling the tracking speed according to Fujifilm.

As noted in its initial announcement, this firmware also allows for autofocus performance down to -7 EV when using the new Fujifilm XF 50mm F1 and adds a focus limited option for pre-determining specific focus ranges.

Although much less exciting, the Fujifilm X-H1 has also received a firmware update (version 2.11) that addresses minor bugs.

You can download and find out more information about firmware version 4.00 for the Fujifilm X-T3 and firmware version 2.11 for the Fujifilm X-H1 on Fujifilm’s website.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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How to Achieve Dark and Dramatic Food Portraits

24 Sep

The post How to Achieve Dark and Dramatic Food Portraits appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Charlie Moss.

Unless you’ve been under a rock for the last few years, you can’t have missed the growth of food portraits. They are everywhere, from the high-budget advertising of supermarkets and artisan food brands to amateur photographers on Instagram.

If you’re even slightly interested in food photography, wherever you look you’ll be presented with sensuous images of beautifully-styled food portraits. From burgers with perfectly placed drippy cheese to vintage-styled cakes laden with fruit, it sometimes seems that the photography world has gone food-mad.

What is a food portrait?

One competition with a food portraiture category says that they want to see images of food that are “good enough to eat.” But a look through their gallery of previous competitions suggests something more.

food portraits
A food portraiture before and after images.

Fujifilm X-T20 | Fujifilm XF 35mm f/1.4 R | 35mm | 1/50 sec | f/8.0 | ISO 200 | Window Light + Reflector

In food portraits, the food is the hero. It’s not about the farmer, the shop, or the packaging; the photograph is unapologetically about the food. And it should make you want to reach right into the picture and take a bite.

There are many styles of food portraits. Sometimes it’s about the hero ingredient and other times it’s about the finished dish. But it’s never about the person who made it or the place the food is being served.

Some photographers love a bright and airy feel to their images. Their shots wouldn’t look out of place in a designer loft apartment. Others prefer a darker-styled shot. And it’s this style that I’m going to focus on in this article.

(If you’d like some inspiration, just search “dark food photography” on Pinterest or Instagram and start scrolling.)

Choosing a subject

Not every piece of food makes for a great subject. If you’re shooting an ingredient before it’s prepared, then don’t be afraid to look for the most perfect or characterful examples you can find in the shop. Every flaw or imperfection will feel like it has been magnified by ten when you photograph it.

Of course, sometimes you might like to deviate from images of perfect ingredients! The potatoes I photographed in the pictures for this tutorial were delightfully gnarled. They come from a period in UK food production called “the hungry gap;” during this time, the last of the winter vegetables are on the table while we wait for the fresh spring produce. Always look for a story in your images.

If you’re planning on shooting a finished dish, then it needs to be plated both beautifully and creatively. This takes practice, and many professional photographers hire food stylists to help them with the job. Don’t be disheartened if it takes a while to get the hang of cooking and plating food that looks good in photographs (besides, you get to eat your attempts while you practice).

food portraits

Take your time composing your scene. As you can see from the screenshot of my Lightroom catalog above, I knew roughly what I wanted from the start, but ended up making many minor adjustments to the potatoes I was photographing.

Don’t forget to think about your props and background. They are as much a part of the shot as the food itself. You can make your images even more unique by painting your own backdrops.

Keep it simple

To shoot dark food portraits, you don’t need an elaborate, complicated, or expensive setup. These potatoes were simply shot on a tabletop with a painted background and a fake wooden surface. There is natural morning light coming from the left-hand side of the image. On the right, I positioned a piece of cardboard with some tinfoil wrapped around it to act as a reflector.

food portraits

Once I’ve shot a photograph that I’m happy with, I like to apply a general Lightroom preset to add contrast and color grade the image. This kind of subtle color grading can really help to set your photo apart.

Changing the color tones in this way is something that people who aren’t photographers often don’t do with their images, and so it adds a more polished look in the eyes of many viewers.

Take it to Photoshop

Once I’ve set the basic color that I want in Adobe Lightroom, I open the image in Photoshop. Photoshop lets you use layers, which ultimately allows you to have greater control over the image you are creating.

Apply sharpening

The first thing I always do when I’m opening an image in Photoshop is apply some gentle sharpening. It just crisps up all the details so that you can get to work.

food portraits

My method for this initial sharpening is to first duplicate the background layer. You’ll need to get a copy of your image onto a new layer in order for this method to work. You can right-click on the existing layer in the layers panel and choose “Duplicate Layer.”

Apply a high pass filter with a radius of about 1.5 on the new layer that you just created. The high pass filter is found in the “Filter” menu (look in “Other” at the bottom of the list). The radius you need will vary, but if you look closely at the image above, you’ll see that the “ghost” of the image is barely visible when you preview the effect that the high pass filter is having.

Once you’ve done this, set the layer’s blend mode to “Overlay,” and you should see the effect of the high pass filter that you just applied.

Dodge and burn

You can make dark food photographs really come alive by using dodge and burn creatively, and that’s the technique at the heart of the example image above.

food portraits

Rather than using the dodge and burn tools built into Photoshop, try this method instead. First, create two new layers. Name one “Dodge” and one “Burn.” In the “New Layer” dialogue box, make sure that you check the option to fill the layer with an overlay-neutral colour and set the blending mode to “Overlay.”

Then, using a soft brush set to 100% opacity but with a low (2-3%) flow, you can start to bring the image to life. Use a black brush on the burn layer to deepen the shadows and a white brush on the dodge layer to brighten the highlights.

Go gently and try not to lose too much detail! The trick with dodging and burning is to build up the effect slowly. Use brushes and layers like a painter uses light and shadow to shape the food portraits that you have photographed.

food portraits
Before and after dodging and burning.

You can always turn down the opacity of a layer if you go too far, or you can even delete it and start again altogether. If there’s just a small bit that you’re not happy with, you can apply a layer mask and just mask out that small section.

Finishing the food portrait

To finish off the image, I added a digital texture to the background and faded it until it was almost invisible. It had the effect of softening the painted backdrop slightly, which is a look I preferred.

food portraits

This basic approach of editing colors in Lightroom (perhaps using a preset), sharpening the image in Photoshop, and then dodging and burning the photograph is one that can be applied to many different kinds of photographs.

I’ve used the same approach in architectural photography as well as portraits, but I feel that it really shines as a technique when it comes to dark and dramatic food portraits.

The post How to Achieve Dark and Dramatic Food Portraits appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Charlie Moss.


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S’cuse Me While I Tweak the Sky: Tips for Dramatic Skies in Your Photos

23 Sep

The post S’cuse Me While I Tweak the Sky: Tips for Dramatic Skies in Your Photos appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Rick Ohnsman.

Singing Home on the Range, a cowboy might picture the perfect place where the skies are not cloudy all day.”

A cloudless day might appeal to many people, but not to landscape photographers.

The so-called “bluebird day” generally makes for poor landscape photographs with a boring, featureless sky. Maybe you’ve also heard this: “When the weather gets bad, the photos get good.”

So what do you do when Mother Nature gives you few or no clouds to work with? Let’s look at some tips for dramatic skies.

Tips for Dramatic Skies - Sky needs work
There’s a good sky here, but it’s going to take some coaxing to bring it out.
Canon 6D | Canon EF 24-105 f/4 | 1/4 sec | f/18 | ISO 200

In camera

If there are no clouds at all to work with, your options while shooting are pretty limited. You may want to compose your shot so that there is little, if any, sky. However, if you have even a few clouds to work with, here are some ways to make the most of them:

Use a polarizing filter

Polarizing filter effectiveness depends on the angle of your shot in relation to the angle of the sun. The strongest effect is with the sun 90 degrees to the direction your camera is pointing; you get varying degrees of effectiveness at other angles.

Look through the viewfinder, rotate the polarizer, and watch as the contrast between the sky and clouds changes. Sometimes this will be very dramatic, especially with white puffy clouds on a blue sky.

Adjust to your taste, backing off a bit if needed. There is such a thing as too much, however, so remember:

What you do with a polarizer when making the shot can’t easily be undone later in post-processing. Be careful when using a polarizing filter in combination with a wide-angle lens. Parts of the sky may darken more than others across the shot, giving an unusual look you probably won’t like, one that is tough to fix later.

Tips for Dramatic Skies - Wide angle plus polarizer a bad combination
A wide-angle lens (this shot was made at 17mm) plus a polarizer can be a bad combination. Note how the sky is darker in some places than others. This would have been better without the polarizer.

Use a graduated neutral density (GND) filter

Landscape photographers often deal with a wide dynamic range between a bright sky and a much darker foreground. Should you expose for the sky or the land, the highlights or the shadows?

A graduated ND filter that goes from a darker density at the top to clear at the bottom can help even out the exposure. The advent of digital editing tools that emulate this in editing has caused many photographers to dispense with using these filters.

One advantage to working without a GND is that you can change your mind later if you don’t want a GND effect. You can also better deal with scenes where the horizon isn’t perfectly straight across. Still, some photographers favor the traditional graduated ND filter in certain circumstances.

Bracket

Rather than use a graduated ND filter in the field to even-out a composition with a bright sky and dark foreground, take multiple bracketed shots while varying the shutter speed (but not the aperture).

Many cameras have this feature built-in, so you can make a series of bracketed shots with one press of the shutter button. Having a series of the same shot taken at varied exposures will give you the raw materials for some of the editing techniques we’re about to explore.

In edit

Sometimes you are able to capture an image that has clouds in the scene, but they are underwhelming and need some editing help to give them extra pizzazz. Let’s look at some tips for dramatic skies using standard editing techniques.

Basic sky editing

Lightroom is usually my editor of choice, and so the techniques I’ll mention next will use it as a reference. The concepts should translate fine to other editors, however, so if you grasp the ideas you’ll be able to implement the same changes, whether you use Capture One, ON1 Photo RAW, ACDSee, or something else.

Whatever you’re photographing, work to keep your exposure “in-bounds.” That is to say: Don’t blow out the highlights on the right side of the histogram or block up the shadows pushing them past the left side of the histogram. Whether working with a dark or light shot, or maybe an image with both light and dark extremes, if the entire histogram is “between the goalposts,” then you have an image that is workable.

That said, whenever possible, use the ETTR (expose-to-the-right) method. If you are not familiar with this, I suggest you read up on it. The greatest amount of data in a photo file is in the brighter tones. If you have a bright sky (and are trying to get some detail in the clouds) combined with a darker foreground, it is better to have to darken the image while editing. You can purposely expose for the highlights and get the sky correct in-camera, but then you may be later faced with trying to brighten up the shadows. A cleaner, less noisy image will result if you have to later bring down the highlights rather than if you drag up dark shadows “out of the mud.”

Also, we are talking about editing a RAW file, not a JPEG. If you are still shooting JPEGs then you have already limited what you can recover. If you don’t shoot RAW images, I suggest you stop here, learn why and how to shoot and work with RAW files, and then come back.

It’s maybe harsh, but if you want to be a more skilled editor and do things like recover cloudy skies, then learning how to work with RAW files is a prerequisite. ‘Nuff said.

Here is my standard workflow in Lightroom for just about any image. If there are clouds in the shot, it’s Step One that brings them alive.

  • Adjust the exposure slider. Don’t worry too much about making it just right. you’ll fine-tune again later.
  • Bring down the highlights. How much? Look at your image and watch the histogram as you work.
  • Open up the shadows. Move the slider to the right. Watch the image and the istogram.
  • Set your white point. There are several ways to do this. I like this method: Hold down the Alt key (Option on Mac). Click and hold the Whites slider. The image will turn black. Now while holding the key and the mouse button down, slowly move the slider to the right until you see a few specks of white on the image. Slide back left a bit if necessary. What you’re doing is making the points that you should into the brightest (whitest) points in the image. They will set the extreme right point on the histogram.
  • Set your black point. This technique is the same: Holding down the Alt/Option key, click the Blacks slider, hold, and drag left. The screen will go white until you reach a point where some black specks appear. I sometimes find I will allow a few more black specks (totally black) points to affect an image than white points, but that depends on the image.
  • Re-adjust your exposure and contrast. You may need to go back now and re-adjust your Exposure slider a bit and/or adjust the Contrast slider.
Tips for dramatic skies - Basic Lightroom editing
With just some basic Lightroom editing, the clouds look better already.
Canon 6D | Canon EF 24-105 f/4 | 1/4 sec | f/18 | ISO 200

How much to adjust any of the sliders will depend on the image. In general, this simple workflow will get your image “in the ballpark” and likely help start bringing out detail in the sky.

You may want to move onto other global adjustments like Texture, Clarity, Dehaze, Vibrance, and Saturation, because you can adjust those to your taste. If, however, your sky needs special help, it’s time for some local adjustments.

Going local

It’s quite possible your sky will need some local adjustments to give it the look you seek. If you’re not familiar with Lightroom’s local adjustment tools and techniques, DPS writer Andrew S. Gibson has written a good article on that subject.

I will add a couple of things to try when using Lightroom’s local adjustment tools to help accentuate your sky and clouds:

  • Try the Range Masking tools to better select your sky. Used in combination with the Graduated Filter, the Radial Filter, and the Adjustment Brush, you’ll be able to apply your effects where you want them and not where you don’t.
  • Try using the Clarity and Dehaze sliders when seeking to tune the sky to achieve the look you want. Go easy, though. It’s easy to go way overboard, especially with the Dehaze slider.
Tips for dramatic skies - Local editing in Lightroom
Combine a Graduated Filter with the Luminance Range Mask in Lightroom to select the sky. Then use the sliders to get the look you seek.
Tips for dramatic skies - After Lightroom treatments
Now we’re talking! Compare this to the original image at the top of the article.
Canon 6D | Canon EF 24-105 f/4 | 1/4 sec | f/18 | ISO 200

Multiple shots: HDR in Lightroom

I mentioned bracketing your shots while shooting high dynamic range subjects, such as with the bright-sky/dark-land combination you may often encounter.

When editing, having multiple bracketed images to work with will offer all kinds of possibilities. One of them is the ability to do HDR (high dynamic range) work within Lightroom. This is a whole lesson unto itself, and I suggest you learn it.

Tips for dramatic skies - Lightroom HDR
5 bracketed images are merged into a single HDR photo in Lightroom.

After producing an HDR image from multiple images merged in Lightroom, you’ll have a 32-bit file to work with, rather than the standard 24-bit single image files you are accustomed to dealing with.

The image will now have 10 stops of exposure adjustment (the Lightroom Exposure slider will go from a +/- 5 range to a +/- 10 range).

Make your bracketed shots so the darkest image captures all the bright sky detail and the brightest image picks up all the shadow detail. Combined into a single 32-bit HDR DNG image in Lightroom, you’ll have lots of adjustment possibilities to get a just-right exposure with good sky detail.

Tips for dramatic skies - finished Lightroom HDR
The 32-bit DNG file created after a merge-to-HDR routine in Lightroom gives a much larger exposure range to work with.

Moving to Photoshop

You can do a lot in Lightroom, but sometimes you need more control and more power. One of the things Photoshop offers that Lightroom doesn’t is layers. Here are some tips for dramatic skies using Photoshop for editing.

Blending

You will need at least two shots with different exposures for this technique. Let’s outline a very simple approach.

(You will need to use layers and masks in Photoshop, so if you’re not familiar with those, here’s your chance to learn.)

  1. This will work best if you shoot from a tripod so your images are identical except for exposure. Shoot at least two shots, one exposed to capture all the bright details in the sky, the other exposed for the darker areas of the land.
  2. If you’re coming from Lightroom, highlight both images, then click Photo>Edit In>Open as Layers in Photoshop. Have the lighter image on top.
  3. To be sure the images are sized and aligned perfectly, select both layers in Photoshop (F7 turns on the layers palette), click the first layer, hold down Shift and click the second layer, and then from the top menu click Edit>Auto-Align Layers>OK.
  4. Create a mask on the top layer. (With the top layer selected, click the Add Layer Mask icon, which looks like a rectangle with a circle in it).
  5. Use the Brush Tool with the color set to Black. Click on the mask you just created. Now paint over the sky. As you do, you will reveal the darker sky layer underneath. Adjusting brush size, opacity, and brush softness will help you better control things.
Tips for dramatic skies - Exposure Blending with two exposures in Photoshop
One shot exposed for the sky, the other for the land. I then layered, aligned, and blended using a mask in Photoshop.
Canon 6D | Canon EF 24-105 f/4

The multi-layer masking approach can also work well if you use Photoshop selections to choose what you will keep from one layer and use from the other layer. Selection techniques can be simple or very complex in Photoshop, depending on how complex a selection you need to make. I will point you to a good entry point for further study: this article by DPS writer Yacine Bessekhouad.

Tips for dramatic skies - Targeted Adjustment tool in Lightroom
Here’s a different technique to try when you have a blue sky and not much additional blue in your shot. Use the Lightroom targeted adjustment tool in the HSL/Color panel to bring down the luminance level of the blue. You can go even further with a monochrome conversion. The look is similar to having used a polarizing filter.

Do some multiplying

Perhaps you only made one shot, didn’t bracket and, despite some of your editing techniques, the sky and clouds still seem a little wimpy. Never fear.

Here’s something else to in Photoshop:

  • Make a duplicate of the layer. (Ctrl/Cmd + J.) You will have two duplicate layers on top of each other.
  • Duplicate that copy again so you now have three duplicate copies. Temporarily turn off the bottommost layer (probably labeled “Background”) by clicking the eyeball icon.
  • Now, change the blend mode to Multiply. The detail and contrast in the clouds should be amplified.
  • Duplicate again for further amplification.
  • Repeat with additional duplicates; hit Ctrl/Cmd + J as desired to keep duplicating. until the sky turns the way you’d like. Don’t worry about the foreground just yet.
  • To reduce the duplicates into one layer, merge the visible layers: Layer>Merge Visible (or Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + E).
  • You will now have just two layers, the merged layers and the background layer. Turn the Background layer back on by clicking the eyeball again.
  • You will now need to use one of the selection and masking techniques to mask out (“erase”) the probably over-darkened land/foreground portion of the top layer.
Tips for dramatic skies - Using a multiply blending layer
Here I brought the shot into Photoshop, made a duplicate, and then applied the Multiply blend mode to the top layer. Bringing back the darker portion was easy here with a straight horizon line. This look is similar to what you might get with a traditional glass graduated ND filter.

S’cuse me while I switch the sky

In the rock classic “Purple Haze,” Jimi Hendrix sang, “S’cuse me while I kiss the sky.” Some people later thought the lyrics to be “kiss this guy;” that’s called a misheard song lyric or mondegreen. A website is devoted to them. As a photographer, I prefer to sing my own version: “S’cuse me while I switch the sky.”

Tips for dramatic skies - The boring original
Could this sky be any more boring? Let’s help it.
Canon 6D | Canon EF 24-105 f/4 | 1/60 sec | f/8 | ISO 100

Sometimes when there’s no clouds at all, or a plain blue sky, a plain gray overcast sky, or maybe you blew out the sky and there’s nothing to recover, you’re left with no alternative. A sky replacement is needed.

Other times, you just want a different sky for a more dramatic effect.

Whatever the case, substituting skies is a great way to get some nice images and a really great way to polish your editing skills.

Tips for dramatic skies - Nice donor sunset
Now here’s a nice sunset. Let’s work a piece of this in.
Canon 6D | Canon EF 24-105 f/4 | f/11 | ISO 200

With Photoshop

Tips for dramatic skies
Put the clouds layer on top, then use a black brush on a white mask and paint to reveal the lower beach area again.
Tips for dramatic skies
Back in Lightroom for some more fine-tuning. Isn’t this a much nicer image than the original?

Sometimes sky replacement is an easy task, such as when you have a flat horizon or perhaps a hard-edged building against the sky.

Of course, if you have trees with leaves or intricate details to select, it can be much more challenging.

Tips for dramatic skies - A No-Cloud day
Some might have called this a perfect day when this historic train rolled into the Boise (Idaho) Union Pacific Depot. Not a cloud in the sky. Boring! At least with the hard, straight lines and continuous blue color, making a selection is easy.

My goal here is not to teach you the various techniques of sky replacement. There are many instructional articles and online tutorials for that. Here’s an example from DPS writer Simon Ringsmuth for basic level sky replacement. Here’s an online Youtube tutorial where a more detailed foreground tree is dealt with. Here’s yet another tutorial with different techniques.

As I said, sky replacement can be a deep dive into Photoshop tools and techniques. But what if there was a simpler way? We’re now beginning to see one-click tools that do a pretty good job of sky replacement.

Tips for dramatic skies - Good clouds
Here’s a dramatic sky. But will it work?
Tips for dramatic skies - Does it work?
Impressive, but does it work? Might you question if this really was the sky that was present when the photo was taken?

With Luminar 4

Sky replacement software has been around for a few years, but it’s only been recently that it’s produced good results with relatively complex subjects. The use of artificial intelligence in applications has made a huge difference in the quality of the finished image.

The “king of the hill” at this writing may be Skylum’s Luminar 4.

Tips for dramatic skies - Luminar 4 Before and After
This was an easy job for Luminar 4 and this stock sky looks pretty convincing.

Luminar 4 comes with a few dozen skies you can use as replacement, and you can add your own skies.

(If you’re serious about getting into sky replacement, I would strongly encourage you to start collecting sky images, snapping shots whenever you see an interesting sky and adding them to a folder for possible later use.)

Tips for dramatic skies - Before Luminar 4
Nice shot, but it would be better with a dramatic sky.
Canon 6D | Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8 | 200mm | 1/30 sec | f/16 | ISO 100

Something to bear in mind when deciding whether to use the included skies or your own is resolution. The replacement sky should have a resolution at least as great or greater than the image to which you’ll be adding it. Using a low-res sky image with a higher-res original image will just look bad and degrade your shot.

Tips for dramatic skies - After Luminar 4
This sunset sky in the Luminar 4 collection was just right for this shot. The program also let me tune the color balance of the original image to match more effectively.

A confession here:

I have only dabbled with sky replacements in Luminar 4 using the free demo version, so I don’t claim to be an expert. I am reasonably impressed with what I’ve seen so far. Even with a fairly complex subject, such as the harbor shot below with lots of sailboat masts and rigging extending into the sky, it did a very nice job.

Might you do better with Photoshop? I guess that would depend on your skill level. Artificial intelligence has not yet reached the level of human skills and intelligence. Then again, much will depend on your level of proficiency with Photoshop. Speaking for myself, I’m not sure I could currently do better than Luminar at this time.

And doing it with a few simple clicks? Good stuff, if you ask me!

Tips for dramatic skies - A tougher challenge for Luminar
With the masts and rigging extending into the sky, replacing the sky with Photoshop selection tools, layers, and masks would be challenging. With Luminar 4, it was done with a few clicks. Perfect? Maybe not, but impressive. It added the birds, too!

Other tools

Luminar isn’t the only program for doing sky replacements. I work on a PC and my tablet and phone are Android devices, so I’m not as familiar with what’s on the Apple side of this kind of software. I do know other forms of software are moving toward the use of AI and doing sky replacement.

I was pleased to stumble across an Android app that may not be as refined as Luminar. And for images you might shoot with your phone and want to do a sky replacement for the web, Enlighten’s Quickshot does an admirable job and is very easy to use, right on your phone. I see it is also available for iOS.

Tips for drmatic skies - sky replacement with Quickshot on Android
I replaced the sky in this shot right on my Android phone. I used Quickshot, a pretty good little app. For online work that will be posted on the web, it seems plenty capable.

Ethics of sky switching

So if you can, does that mean you should? If you can replace the sky in a photo, should you? When does the result stop being a photograph and become an art piece, a reflection of the skills of a photo editor and not those of a photographer? Would you enter an image in a photo contest where you had replaced the sky?

I don’t claim to have the answers, but I have raised the ethical questions surrounding sky replacement before. Take a look at this article I wrote several years ago which dives deeper into that subject.

If you’re going to do magic…

Have you ever had the misfortune of watching a really bad magician? A show where it is clearly evident the performer really did have something up his sleeve or where there was no doubt about how the trick was done? I’d use that example as a lesson in what not to do if you decide to do sky replacement with your photos.

A shot where the light in the sky comes from one side while the subjects in the foreground are lit from the other side would be an example of “bad magic.” So would different light temperatures between land and sky or evident fringing where poor selection and masking was done. Rather than embarass yourself with a poorly executed sky replacement where even non-photographers can spot the fakery, practice your skills for yourself only. I believe only when you’re ready for “primetime” should you begin showing your sky replacement images.

Then, of course, you will face a new dilemma. Once people are aware you can produce shots with amazing skies, even when you do capture a photo in-camera with a gorgeous sky they will wonder, “Is that real or did you add it?”

Tips for dramatic skies - Real or Not?
If you’re going to “do magic” and replace skies, it had better be convincing. You tell me: Is this the original sky or not?

Conclusion

I hope you picked up some good tips for dramatic skies in this article. I also hope you’ll give consideration into not just when and how to implement these techniques, but if you should or shouldn’t.

Some people really don’t enjoy photo editing and would prefer to do everything in-camera as much as possible. For others, editing is part of the craft and no photo is complete until it has undergone an extensive edit session.

As I write this, the Covid-19 crisis lingers, and so maybe you have more time at home to work on your editing skills. Meanwhile, let me leave you with this sign-off used by Garrison Keillor, host of the radio show, “A Prairie Home Companion.”

“Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.”

The post S’cuse Me While I Tweak the Sky: Tips for Dramatic Skies in Your Photos appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Rick Ohnsman.


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How to Create Dramatic Portraits in Your Garage

15 Aug

The post How to Create Dramatic Portraits in Your Garage appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Nick Fancher.

The setup

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If you want to take dramatic portraits on a black backdrop (without even needing a single light), a garage is your new go-to spot.

This is the simplest (and most makeshift looking) setup that I use. As you can see in the image above, all I am using is a piece of black foam core, folded into a “V,” set inside a garage on a sunny day.

While you can accomplish this setup on overcast days, having a sunny day helps to increase the brightness of everything outside the garage, thus increasing the catch light in the model’s eyes. The sunny daylight scene outside the garage essentially acts as a giant reflector, which illuminates the area under the subject’s chin to soften shadows.

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The reason why a garage is great for this kind of setup is that it allows you to place your subject closer or further away from the bright, outdoor light, depending on how much light you want in your subject’s eyes or how even you want the light to appear.

For example, if the subject is right at the edge of the garage, just out of the sun, the exposure will be very bright, requiring a very fast shutter speed and/or a small aperture, but they will have large catchlights in their eyes. Note that the smaller aperture will cause the image to be sharper from the front to the back. Also, the closer the subject is to the bright outside, the darker the background will be once you’ve adjusted your exposure for their skin tone.

Alternatively, if the subject is placed deeper into the garage, it allows you to use a wider aperture or slower shutter speed, which can create a flattering, softer, shallow depth of field look, though the catch light and overall light quality will change.

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Shooting in a garage is the equivalent to a one-light studio portrait since the only light source is the open garage door. This increases the appearance of the image being a studio portrait, as it mimics a large softbox or octabox (though an open garage door is larger and less expensive).

If you want to have more light, such as hair light and rim light, to create separation between a subject and the background, there is another option available to you. Simply place your subject on the shaded side of the garage, allowing the sun to light just the edges of your subject’s hair and shoulders, as seen below.

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The one downside to having a huge wall of soft light in front of your subject is that it can flatten out the subject, which can make the lighting appear flat or boring. One remedy for this is flagging off portions of the light, as seen in the image below. Note that any object you place in front of the model to flag the light will also change the shape of the catchlights in their eyes.

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For portraits like this, you will want to use a focal length of at least 50mm or longer. Anything wider angle will lead to distortion of the subject’s features. Since you are shooting outdoors, you have unlimited space to back away from the subject. So I like to use my 70-200mm lens for these types of headshots.

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The other perks that come with shooting outside or in a garage are that you have a free hair fan and plenty of ventilation, which comes in handy when you’re shooting smoke.

My buddy Colin is a drummer in the band House of Heroes. He approached me to shoot the cover of their latest EP, Smoke. He wanted a dramatic, close-up of a girl’s face with smoke all around. I knew that my garage would be the perfect spot to conduct the shoot (as it’s open-air with bright light).

I placed whiteboards on either side of Courtney, which helped to not only fill in any shadows under her jaw but also add catchlights to her eyes. In addition to the images of Courtney, I also shot several frames of smoke being exhaled by Colin (try doing that inside a studio) isolated on the black backdrop, which was later overlaid on the final image of the model in post-production.

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Have you tried doing portraits in your garage or other makeshift location? Have any additional tips? Please share in the comments.

How to Create Dramatic Portraits in Your Garage

The post How to Create Dramatic Portraits in Your Garage appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Nick Fancher.


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How to Predict Dramatic Sunsets

20 Jul

The post How to Predict Dramatic Sunsets appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Bruce Wunderlich.

Summer sunset over Marietta Ohio just after a storm had past through earlier in the afternoon.
“Red Sky”  Summer sunset over Marietta, Ohio

One question every child asks is, “Why is the sky blue?” But let’s look at why is the sky red at Sunset. Light from the sun is made up of all the colors in the rainbow. As the sunlight enters the earth’s atmosphere, the short wavelength of blue light is scattered in all directions, more than any of the other colors, causing the sky to be blue during the day.

At sunrise and sunset, the light has farther to travel due to the low angle of the sun in the sky. This causes the blue light to be blocked and scattered away, allowing the longer wavelengths of red and yellow colors to appear in the sky.

I am sure you wish there was some magic formula that could tell you exactly the night for photographing a beautiful sunset? It’s not that easy, but hopefully, we can discover some ways to increase your odds.

Let’s take a closer look at some other factors that will help you predict brilliantly-colored sunsets.

You have no doubt heard the saying “Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning. Red sky at night, sailors’ delight”. This saying can also help you predict sunsets (and sunrises) if you know the weather forecast. Look for a red sky at sunrise ahead of a storm and at sunset after a storm. Knowing what to expect weather-wise is key to anticipating the right conditions for a shoot, so the first thing you need to do is find a good weather app or website.

A website such as Intellicast.com will give you a detailed hourly report for key factors: cloud cover, air quality, humidity, and wind speed.

Winter sunset after a snow storm.
Winter sunset after a snow storm.

Clouds and Cloud Cover

Clouds are a crucial factor to predicting dramatic sunsets, for without clouds there is not much to see.

One common misconception of brilliant sunsets is that clouds create the colors; in reality clouds only serve as the canvas to display the colors that the light is painting. High to mid-level clouds are the most effective canvases, as they will reflect the colors of the setting sun. Puffy clouds on the horizon at sunset will more than likely not allow the sun rays to pass through them, thus muting the colors. Lower clouds (such as dark rain-filled clouds) are not very helpful at reflecting much light.

If the clouds on the horizon are low and thick, the sun will not be able to shine through them. It is also worth noting that too many or too few clouds can be detrimental for an optimal photo, so check out your detailed weather report for cloud cover percentages between 30 to 70 percent at sunset.

You can observe cloud conditions in the afternoon and if the sky looks favorable, you can hope that these clouds will still be present at sunset. No guarantees, but if there is not much wind these clouds may stick around to create a beautiful sunset.

A brief description of fair weather clouds that may produce dramatic sunsets:

  • Cirrocumulus Clouds – These look like ripples on water. Blue sky is the usual backdrop.
  • Altocumulus Clouds – Often occur in sheets or patches with wavy, rounded masses or rolls, like little cotton balls. They are generally white or grey and usually appear after a storm.
  • Cumulus Clouds – Easily recognizable, large, white, and fluffy, often with flat bases.
  • Cirrus Clouds – Generally characterized by thin, wispy strands. These clouds arrive in advance of frontal systems indicating that weather conditions may soon deteriorate. Nevertheless, these are one of the best kind for photographing dramatic sunsets!
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If you see this kind of sky in the afternoon with calm winds, chances are good you are in for something special at sunset.
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Clean Air

Clean air is very effective at scattering the blue light. For this reason, one of the best times for dramatic sunsets is right after a rain or wind storm. While lower clouds rarely reflect brilliant colors (as mentioned above), note that where the lower atmosphere is especially clean, as in over open oceans in tropical regions, more vivid colors are allowed pass through. This is the reason so many beautiful sunset images are captured in the tropics.

Humidity

The amount of humidity in the air will also have an effect on the colors of your sunset. Lower humidity will produce more vibrant colors. With higher humidity, the colors will be muted because of the water content in the atmosphere. The seasons of autumn and winter typically produce lower humidity than in the warmer seasons.

Wind

Wind is a factor that can either enhance or destroy a beautiful sunset. A change in wind direction can cause the clouds to develop ripples or billows, which can create a beautiful effect as the setting sun reflects a nice red glow onto the ripples.

Also, as established earlier, clean air will produce more brilliant colors, and a nice breeze before sunset can help clear the air.

Unfortunately, the wind can become a negative factor on those days when favorable clouds are present in the afternoon, but a weather front moves through with strong winds that remove those clouds and leave you with a clear sky at sunset.

This is another instance when a good weather app or weather website can give you an indication on its radar as to when a front may move through your area.

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To summarize your sunset prediction, look for:

  • Mid to high-level clouds
  • 30 to 70 percent cloud coverage
  • Clean air
  • Lower humidity
  • Calm winds

A final thought to consider when photographing sunsets – sometimes the afterglow of the sunset, which can occur 15 to 20 minutes after the sun goes behind the horizon, can be much more spectacular than the actual sunset.

Generally, all these weather-related rules also apply to photographing sunrise, but the visual signs are more difficult to spot since it is darkest before the dawn. A good time to photograph at sunrise is in the fall and winter when it occurs later in the day than in the summer months.

Do you have any other tips for predicting dramatic sunsets? Please share some of your favorite sunset images. Who doesn’t love a good sunset? If you want some tips for shooting the great sunset you’ve found try: 8 Simple Guidelines for Capturing Spectacular Sunrise and Sunset Images

The post How to Predict Dramatic Sunsets appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Bruce Wunderlich.


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Learn these Two Techniques for Dramatic Light-Painted Photos

21 Nov

The post Learn these Two Techniques for Dramatic Light-Painted Photos appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Rick Ohnsman.

techniques-for-dramatic-light-painted-photos

“Wherever there is light, one can photograph.” – Alfred Steiglitz

You will find many quotes from famous photographers about light.  They know it is the very essence of photography.  The word is from the Latin roots, “phos” for light, and “graphe” for drawing or painting.  So, photography is quite literally, drawing or painting with light. In this article, you’ll learn two techniques for dramatic light-painted photos.

This "Autumn Apples Still Life" is in the style of the Dutch Master's paintings.

A single-exposure light painting. This “Autumn Apples Still Life” is in the style of the Dutch Master’s paintings.

Typically, we open the camera shutter for a slice of time, and whatever light exists in the scene creates an image on the sensor (or perhaps the film if that’s the medium you’re still using). The quality, quantity, and color of the light are recorded. Where there is no light, nothing is captured.

There is a basic difference in light painting photography. Rather than simply capturing the existing light during the exposure, you, as the photographer, will use light to “paint” the scene. Use more on the portions of the scene you want highlighting, less or even none on those places you want subduing.

Think of it as painting on a black canvas. Where you apply paint (light in the case of photography), an image will result — no paint (light), no image. And, of course, there are all kinds of quantities in-between.

techniques-for-dramatic-light-painted-photos

You can later add some other touches in editing to go even more in a painterly direction.

Two approaches

There are two basic techniques for dramatic light-painted photos:

1. Single exposure

Here you determine how long you will leave the shutter open. This will often be multiple seconds or even longer. While the shutter is open, you “paint” the subject with your light, emphasizing the portions of the scene you want to bring out, leaving in shadow those you want subdued.

Your working time will be the shutter duration, and you will make your entire image during that single exposure.

2. Multiple exposure

This technique is somewhat like the previous one in that you paint a portion of the subject with light during what will often be a multi-second exposure.

The difference is that you will take multiple shots of the subject, each time painting just a portion of the scene. Then in the edit, you combine these multiple images, much like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, into the final composite image.

techniques-for-dramatic-light-painted-photos

“Goin’ Down in the Mine” – This is a single exposure light painting with some additional light from the lantern.

Single exposure technique

Scene considerations

What you decide to make the subject of your light painted photo is strictly up to you. Favorite subjects of mine are still-life images in the style of the old Dutch Master’s paintings. These use simple, static scenes. There is an emphasis on very directional lighting with portions of the image well-lit while other portions may be in deep shadow.

It is easy to find a few simple items and create a nice still-life scene. Perhaps put up a backdrop to simplify the shot, turn off the lights and let your flashlight be your sole source of light as you make the shot.

When starting to learn this technique, this can be a great place to start.

techniques-for-dramatic-light-painted-photos

“Doc Brown Makes a House Call” – Thematic scenes which tell a story can make nice subjects for still life light paintings.

I also like to make these kinds of light paintings with items in the shot which show a theme or tell a story. I was fortunate to initially learn light painting in a workshop put on by area photographer, Caryn Esplin. Espin not only taught our group the technique but also had various thematic sets we could photograph.

Several of the images in this article, I made during that workshop.

Motion types – light trails

Most of what we cover here will use a light to “paint” the subject.

A different kind of light painting is where the light IS the subject. It too, uses a long exposure, and when the light moves during that exposure, it creates light “trails.”

Sometimes this will be the lights of moving objects, such as the streaks of light created by moving vehicles or other illuminated objects. Other times, the photographer, or perhaps an assistant, will “draw” with a light source, creating the image with the light.

"Rush Hour - Boise, Idaho" - Lights that move during a long exposure will create light trails. This is a type of light painting, just not the kind we'll discuss in this article.

“Rush Hour – Boise, Idaho” – Lights that move during a long exposure will create light trails. This is a type of light painting, just not the kind we’ll discuss in this article.

There are many variations of this style of light painting, and the light used may not always be a flashlight. Special light “wands,” some even programmable, can be purchased for all manner of amazing effects. Steel wool spinning where an ignited piece of steel wool is spun, throwing sparks, and creating light trails is another example.

Image: If a light moves during a long exposure, you will get light trails.

If a light moves during a long exposure, you will get light trails.

Any moving object which emits light will create light trails during a long exposure. While that is a fun technique and one I’d encourage you to try as well, it’s just not the type which is the subject of this article.

Instead, we concentrate on using a light source, typically a flashlight (aka a “torch”), to paint our subject with light.

Single exposure: step-by-step

Location – Total darkness

You will be using a flashlight to make your image during a long exposure and want to be able to control exactly where that light does and does not fall. Ambient light is not what you want.

Try to work in a location that is quite dark. You can check if it is dark enough by making a shot with the exposure setting you intend to use, but not lighting it. You should get a black frame or at least only see a faint background of objects you might want to include.

You can light paint portraits, but your subject will need to sit very still during the long exposure.

“The Thousand-Yard-Stare.” You can light paint portraits, but your subject will need to sit very still during the long exposure.

Equipment

Most cameras will work for this if they go into full manual mode. You will need to be able to control the ISO, aperture, and shutter speed manually. Plus, you’ll need to focus and lock the focus manually.

If you will be shooting longer than the camera’s longest shutter speed (often 30-seconds), you will also need to be able to go into Bulb mode. This will allow you to keep the shutter open as long as you like. Usually, 30 seconds or less will be fine, but that depends on the subject, your light source, distance from the camera, and other exposure factors.

If you find your exposure will be longer than 30 seconds, you will also need a shutter release so you can hold the shutter open longer in bulb mode. There are very affordable corded releases.

If you need to be working further from your camera so you can both light the scene and trigger the shutter, a remote cordless shutter release can be a great way to go.

techniques-for-dramatic-light-painted-photos

Single Exposure Technique. 10 Seconds, f/16, ISO 100 with Canon 6D and Canon EF 24-105 f/4 IS Lens at 58mm.

Lens selection will depend on your proximity to the subject.  For tabletop still life shots where you’ll usually be just a couple of feet from your subject, a 50mm prime can be just right.  The “nifty-fifty” (Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 STM Lens) on my Canon camera is sharp and a perfect lens for this kind of work.

Pick your sharpest lens and an appropriate focal length to fill the frame with your subject.

A tripod is practically a must for this kind of long-exposure photography.

The camera must not move during the exposure. Whatever way you have of doing that will work, but I personally believe any photographer worth their salt owns a good, stable tripod.  Have a good tripod and use it.

Light

Here is the U.S., we call it a flashlight. In other places, it’s called a torch. What we’re talking about is a battery-powered portable light source that you can direct onto your subject.

Some will have focusable beams, which can be a nice feature. Some might have multiple intensity settings, which is also useful. If you can find one that has a neutral-white (about 4500-5000K) output, that’s even better.

Standard incandescent bulb flashlights will tend to have a warmer, yellowish color light while most LED bulbs are blueish in color.

The Zanflare F2 is a nice flashlight for tabletop light painting.

The Zanflare F2 which can be purchased with a 4500-500K bulb is a nice and inexpensive light for light painting.

A nice light for table-top light painting is the Zanflare F2 which can be had with a 4500-5000K bulb.  It has two power output settings and can usually be purchased for under $ 10.00 US.

Another very affordable light I recently purchased for longer range outdoor light painting is the Energizer ENPMHH62. It’s under $ 15.00 US. You can pay a lot for fancy “tactical” flashlights, but I’m not sure they will improve your light painting photography unless perhaps you need to light something very far away.

Camera settings

If you’re working inside where you can turn the room light off and on, set up your shot with the lights on. Focus on the subject, then turn off the autofocus, so the focus stays locked at that spot. Failure to do this will have your camera hunting for focus in the dark, and that will certainly ruin your shot.

If you’re outside and it’s already dark, use your flashlight to help set up the shot and get good focus. Turn off autofocus and lock it in once you have it.

Put your camera in full manual mode. Set the ISO as low as you can for the lighting conditions, remembering that a lower ISO setting will help reduce noise in your shot. Because you can make the shutter speed as long as you need to, you can often get away with ISO 100. Try that and adjust it later if you need to.

See if you can work with the “sweet spot” – the sharpest aperture for your given lens – usually about f/8 to f/11. This should also help give you an adequate depth of field. Stop down to f/16 or even f/22 if you really need the depth of field. However, realize smaller apertures significantly increase the amount of light, and the time of the exposure you’ll need to make a proper exposure.

As for the shutter speed, that depends on how much light you’re working with, the proximity of your light to your subject, the brightness of the subject itself, and how long you need to properly paint your subject for the look you desire. There is no “right” answer to this.

Start with good average settings – something like ISO 100, f/8 for 20 seconds. Once you make a shot and evaluate it, you can make adjustments for subsequent shots.

techniques-for-dramatic-light-painted-photos

Ready, set, paint!

With everything ready to go, set the 2-second timer to trip the shutter (or use the remote), trip the shutter and start painting your subject with the light.  Here are some things to keep in mind when doing so:

  • You will probably want to direct your light from the side, above, or maybe behind the subject.  Lighting from the front, the same position as the camera view, will result in an image that looks flat and uninteresting.
  • Shadows are every bit as important as the light.  You are not going for an image that is evenly lit, looks like it was taken in ambient light or was done with a flash.  Deep shadows, light on parts of the subject you want to draw attention to and shadows elsewhere will add to the drama you’re seeking.  Again, look at the still life Dutch Master’s painting style for clues on how to light your subject.  Less can really be more here. Caryn Esplin, the photographer I mentioned earlier, uses the expression “Reveal and Conceal.”
  • Use your light like a paintbrush, moving it in circular motions.
  • Do not allow the beam of light to point at the camera or you will create light trails on the image.
  • To be able to pinpoint smaller areas of your subject, consider “snooting” the flashlight, that is, putting a piece of tape, a cone, or something else on it to reduce the size of the beam.
  • Brighter objects in the scene will need less light, darker objects more.  You will also want to leave some portions of the scene dark to better emulate the painters’ style and add drama.
Cross Lighting brings out the texture and adds drama to this image.

Simple subjects can make good light paintings. The cross-lighting brings out the texture and the deep shadows add drama in this “Pigskin Portrait.”

  • Shoot, chimp, evaluate and adjust, and shoot again.  Adjust your camera settings as necessary for the best exposure.  Look at your image and think about what you might do differently.  You might get lucky and nail the shot on your first try. However, it’s more typical to make lots of images, trying different things and later choosing the best.  Digital film is cheap.  Don’t be afraid to make LOTS of shots.
Image: “Patriotic Pickup.” Put it on an Australian flag and you can call it a “Lan...

“Patriotic Pickup.” Put it on an Australian flag and you can call it a “Land Down Under Ute.”

Multiple-exposure technique

This is the second of the techniques for dramatic light-painted photos. While in the previous technique, the photo is made and the subject painted all in one long exposure, this technique involves making multiple exposures. Then you combine them like the pieces of a puzzle into the final image.

Making each of the individual exposures is essentially identical to techniques used in the prior method, but instead of having to light paint the entire scene in one shot, smaller pieces of the scene are done individually.

For example, say you wanted to make a light-painted photo of an old truck at night with the Milky Way overhead in the sky. You could make the background shot of the stars first, then using your flashlight, make a shot lighting just the front tire. Then light the grill, hood, or perhaps the interior. Add some light from the side, back, and on the grass in the foreground. Each of the individually lit shots would be a piece of your puzzle.

That’s exactly the technique used by Richard Tatti, the guy whose online Youtube tutorials taught me this method. The only difference is that he, being an Australian photographer, calls what I would describe as a pickup truck a “ute.” (Editor note: As an Aussie, we also call them “you-beaut utes!” Total slang, of course.)

techniques-for-dramatic-light-painted-photos

One image was made for the sky and mountains, followed by about 10 other shots, each lighting a different location in the scene. This uses the multiple-exposure technique.

Richard does a nice job describing the light painting and photographing of a scene, as well as how to edit and combine the individual images into one in this tutorial. So I will suggest you view that for the step-by-step how-to. 

I will simply list the steps you’ll be taking.

In Lightroom

After making the individual shots, Lightroom is a good tool for preparing, sorting, and perhaps doing some minor editing to them. Be sure to sync them, so they are all the same size before the next step. The next step is where you select the individual images you will use and then use the “Open as Layers in Photoshop” command to export them into Photoshop. To do this, go to Photo->Edit In->Open as Layers in Photoshop.

Image: Decide which of your images you want to use as “pieces in your puzzle,” select th...

Decide which of your images you want to use as “pieces in your puzzle,” select them all, and then send them out using “Open as Layers in Photoshop.”

In Photoshop

This might take some time, especially if you have lots of layers, but when done, you will see the individual photos all lined up in a Photoshop layers stack.

Find what you would consider your “base” or bottom layer in Photoshop, and if it is not already in the bottom position, click, hold and drag it to that spot in the stack.

Aligning

If you shot on a tripod and the camera didn’t move during the series of exposures (which is what you need to do), this step might not be necessary. However, if the camera moved even a tiny bit, you will want to align the images. It’s not a bad idea to do anyway; it just takes a little more time.

Click the top layer, hold down Shift, and click the bottom layer, so all are selected. Then click the Edit->Auto Align Layers->Auto->OK. Let it work; it’ll take a bit.

Once done, if you see any white edges, crop the image to eliminate those.

Lighten Blending Mode

At first, you will see just the top layer in the stack. Let’s turn the lights on.

Click the top layer in the stack to select it. Then hold down Shift and click the next to last layer, so all but the bottom layer is selected. Then click the Lighten blending mode.

Presto! The lighted portions of your image will all appear, much as if you’ve turned on all those individually lit portions of the image. Cool huh?

Image: Selecting the layers and then applying the “Lighten” blending mode will turn the...

Selecting the layers and then applying the “Lighten” blending mode will turn the lights on!

Use the Eyeball

The little icon to the left of each layer is an eyeball. If you click it on any individual layer, you can toggle that layer, making it visible or invisible. In this case, if you click it to make it invisible, the “lights” on that layer will be turned off.

Think of the eyeballs as light switches. Click them on and off on each layer, and it’s like individually switching the lights on each portion of the shot. It’s a great way to see the effect of that layer on the entire shot.

Sometimes after viewing what a given layer is doing, you may not choose to use that layer at all. If not, leave the eyeball off for that layer.

Image: Work a layer at a time using masking layers and a brush set to black to rub out pieces you do...

Work a layer at a time using masking layers and a brush set to black to rub out pieces you don’t want or perhaps want to reduce the opacity.

Fine-tuning with masks

If you’ve not worked with layers and masks in Photoshop before, this part can seem intimidating.  It need not be.  You will simply use a layer mask and the paintbrush tool set to black to, as Richard calls it, “rub out” any parts of the lighting layers you don’t want to appear.  You can also adjust the opacity of a brush or of the layer itself to control how much impact that layer has on the overall image.

For more on using layer masks, read this article.

techniques-for-dramatic-light-painted-photos

This is the same scene as before, but with a different camera angle and different choices about how I used each lit layer.

Go let your light shine!

Light painting is a lot of fun and a great way to produce some nice images. Because of the nature of how you move the light over a subject, no two images will be the same, and what you create will be uniquely yours.

The single exposure method is a great place to start, and if you are a beginner photographer, using the manual settings of your camera will be a good lesson. You will quickly learn the relationships of light and the camera controls; ISO, aperture, and shutter speed, for adjusting your exposure.

The multiple exposure method is a great way to work in larger settings. You can light a tree here and another way across the field if you want as you’re not restricted to making the image all in one click of the shutter. Blending the individual images in Photoshop will also teach you a lot about layers and masks, something that can sometimes be a challenge to learn.

If you make some nice images, post them in the comments so we can see what you’ve created. Also, if you have problems or questions, post something in the comments, and I’ll see if I can help you.

Now, grab your camera, tripod, flashlight/torch, and try these techniques for dramatic light-painted photos. And go let your light shine!

Author’s Note – Just as this article was being submitted, I held a light-painting workshop for my fellow members of the Boise (Idaho) Camera Club.  Have a look at their work here.

 

 

 

The post Learn these Two Techniques for Dramatic Light-Painted Photos appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Rick Ohnsman.


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Video: iPhone records its dramatic fall from a plane over Iceland, is recovered a year later

05 Oct

Iceland Photo Tours pilot and photographer Haukur Snorrason has shared a video showing the descent of his iPhone 6S Plus as it fell from a small plane located about 60m (200ft) over Iceland. The incident happened more than a year ago; given the height and frozen tundra beneath, Snorrason had assumed at the time that his tiny iPhone hadn’t survived the fall.

Around 13 months after the phone was dropped, a group of hikers discovered the device in a patch of moss, which had cushioned the blow and enabled the phone to survive the drop. The device powered on when tested, revealing Snorrason’s name and making it possible to reunite him with his lost device.

In addition to being nearly entirely functional (only the microphone was damaged), Snorrason discovered that the iPhone had recorded and saved a video of its rapid descent from the plane. The device landed face down on the moss, protecting the display from the elements while leaving the camera exposed to record the bright blue sky and Sun until its battery died.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Make the Most of High Contrast Lighting for Dramatic Street Photos

02 Aug

The post Make the Most of High Contrast Lighting for Dramatic Street Photos appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kevin Landwer-Johan.

Street photographers often love the type of light many others seek to avoid. High contrast lighting is favored by many because of the drama it adds to the action, or lack of it, in the streets.

Making the most of high contrast lighting is a matter of being able to see it more as your camera does. It also helps to have a good knowledge of how you can manipulate your photos during post-processing.

Make the Most of High Contrast Lighting for Dramatic Street Photos Young Market Vendor

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

Seeing like your camera

Your eyes can see a wider range of tone than your camera can. This is changing as camera technology advances. Soon cameras will be able to record more details in the highlights and shadows over a broader range. For now, your eyes are more capable.

What you see on your camera’s monitor when you review a photo is different than what you’ll see on your computer. On your camera, you will not see so much depth or detail. Learning to discern what your photos will look like after some post-processing will help you take better photos.

cycling

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

Taking photos knowing how you will process them later helps you make better decisions while you’re taking photos. The choices you make about exposure and composition can depend on what treatment you will give a RAW image on your computer.

When you look at a high contrast scene, your eyes will see more detail than your camera is able to record. Because the difference between the light value of the highlights and shadows is so vast, your camera cannot record it all. But your eyes will still be able to see it.

Understanding this when you are in high contrast light will help you make better photos.

high-contrast-lighting-for-dramatic-street-photos- Cycle Shadows

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

Expose with intent

Photographing in hard light means you must make careful exposure choices. Do you want to see details in the highlights? Do you want to see details in the shadow areas? You must choose if you want to make the most of the dramatic lighting.

Exposing for the highlights and letting the shadows fall into black is one of the most popular methods. This adds drama and mystery to your street photos.

I prefer to set my exposure manually. This way I know it will not alter until I change the settings myself. I will choose a light area to make a meter reading from. Then I will underexpose it a little to make the effect a little more dramatic.

This will make the shadow areas appear even darker. It also means I am less likely to have bright areas with no detail.

Drummer Boy

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

Setting my exposure in this way, I know I’ll be able to push the contrast effect even further during post-production.

If you set your camera to expose for the shadows, the highlight areas will be even brighter. You will lose detail in the lightest parts of your composition. Sometimes you will want this and to keep the details in the shadows. You must make a conscious choice when you are setting your exposure. If you get this wrong, you will find you cannot manipulate your photos so much during post-processing. This is more so if you are taking .jpegs rather than RAWs.

high-contrast-lighting-for-dramatic-street-photos Happy Man with contrast

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

Make use of the shadows

You can hide things in the shadows. You can conceal people or unwanted distracting elements in the darkness of a shadow.

Careful use of shadows can isolate your main subject and draw the viewer’s eye to it.

Use graphic lines of shadows created by architecture, trees or other strong forms. The shadows themselves become graphic elements in your photographs. You can combine them with the solid forms in your composition to create tension or harmony.

Wood Carving in the Shadows

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

Look for how static and moving shadows appear in your compositions. What do the shadows of people look like on the pavements or walls as they walk by? Are there shadows created by trucks, buses or cars passing by? Can you see light reflected off windows back into the shadows?

While you’re out with your camera, think about how the shadows might look when you add more contrast during post-processing.

high-contrast-lighting-for-dramatic-street-photos

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

Find a location and choose your time

Observe how the daylight looks at the places you like to photograph. It will be different at various times of the day and during different seasons.

Look at how the shadows fall on the ground and surrounding buildings. Are people walking in the sunshine or in the shade? At which points to they emerge from the shadows? Is the light in front of them or behind?

Pick a good place to work from and stay awhile. If you can visit the same location on many different occasions, you’ll build up a more diverse set of photographs. Doing this, you’ll be able to compare the photos you take. This can help you learn your favorite time to photograph at that place. Then plan to do it again and take even better photos.

Find a place where the light is how you like it and the background is interesting. Make sure the background will support the style of photograph you are wanting to take. Is the background in full sun or in the shadows? Is the light falling on it pleasing to you?

Egg Man black and white

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

Move around and look at the space from different angles. Where you photograph from will look different depending on where the sun is. You might prefer the sun behind you or to one side. Some scenes may look better when your subjects are backlit. These should be carefully made and not left to chance.

If you are including people or traffic in your photos, be observant of how it is moving. Anticipate where it looks best. How does the light look on a person as they walk through your composition? Does the traffic moving in one direction look more interesting than traffic moving the other way?

Once you have decided on a place to work from, stay there. Being patient is one of the most important things to do as a photographer. Wait and watch. Look for patterns of movement and also when these patterns are interrupted or broken. These can be some of the most interesting times to take street photographs.

Fancy Kaftan

© Kevin Landwer-Johan

Conclusion

Look at the sunlight and think about how you can post-process to enhance the look you want.

With street photography, you are reliant on the available light. You must look at it and figure out the best place to stand. Then you must make the right choice of exposure settings to take advantage of the high contrast.

Once you have found a good location and made a few exposures hang around. Give yourself time and space to really work a scene. Try going back to the same location at different times of the day and in different seasons. You may be surprised at how different your photographs will look.

We’d love it if you would go out and try some of these techniques and share your photos with us in the comments below.

 

high-contrast-lighting-for-dramatic-street-photos

The post Make the Most of High Contrast Lighting for Dramatic Street Photos appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kevin Landwer-Johan.


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How to Create Dramatic Portraits with Shadow Photography [video]

10 May

The post How to Create Dramatic Portraits with Shadow Photography appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Caz Nowaczyk.

In this video by Shutterstock Tutorials, Robbie Janney shows you how to create dramatic portraits with shadow photography by using everyday objects to create those shadows.

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Shadow portraits

If you are after something different to do with your portraits, using shadows can create dramatic effects and make your photos stand out.

Shadow photography is an interesting niche to explore. You can achieve it by doing the following:

What you need:

  • A hard key light
  • A backlight (like a Quasar or similar)
  • Backdrop
  • Some cool household items that light can pass through (colanders, wicker baskets, film strips etc.

When shooting through the objects, the light can become softer instead of the hard light you are trying to achieve. This problem can be attributed to the light source’s aperture. Similar to your camera, when you want an image with nice sharp edges, you close your aperture to one of its smallest settings.

It’s the same with your light source. Just in this instance, you’re limiting the amount of light being put out, not absorbed. This limits the amount of diffraction that your light projects creating a harsher shadow when passing through your opaque object.

Most lights won’t have an aperture setting, so to cut down the beam of light, cut a hole in a piece of black cardboard and put that close to your light source using a stand to narrow the light beam. You can even change the shape of the hole in your cardboard for different effects.

Once you have your studio setup, and light ready, get creative with your shots by changing up the angle of light, subject, or the type of object you are sending the light through.

Experiment to get your best shots.

Have fun and share your shots in the comments below.

 

You may also find the following helpful:

  • 4 Beginner Tips for Creating Dramatic Portraits with One Flash
  • How to Create Dramatic Portraits in Your Garage
  • 5 Tips How to Set Up a Home Studio for Dramatic Portraits
  • How to Create Dark and Dramatic Backgrounds Using High-Speed Sync
  • How to Make a Dramatic Portrait with Light Painting Using Items Found in Your Home

 

The post How to Create Dramatic Portraits with Shadow Photography appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Caz Nowaczyk.


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